


Windmills

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 01:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14390925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: From this prompt: I have a sickly sweet prompt for you. Set slightly in the future. Mulder and Scully's second child is now 12. Will visits every now and then but never stays long. During one of his visits, his 12 year old sibling randomly asks Mulder how he and Scully fell in love. I just wanna overdose on fluff right now.





	Windmills

It’s a strange feeling to know that Will is on the way home. And yes, it is home. That’s what he calls it. The blades of the windmill turn anti-clockwise despite the tendencies of the prevailing winds. Mulder always waggles his eyebrows and says, in his exaggerated southern accent, “Build it, and he will come. Y’all best get the pot roast on.”

And she does. It’s a recipe that she saw once in a vision and Mulder declared it the best thing she’d ever cooked, without a hint of irony. The windmill blades turned and Will showed up on the doorstep with a crooked smile and a grateful hug. He spent two days with them, fixing the flywires, turning soil in the long-dry vegetable patch, sowing seeds with his father. And yes, he is his father. She’s always known, but for the sake of science, she ran the tests anyway. Love conquers all. Even black-lunged psychopathic rapists.

Today, Esther is in the yard, pitching her baseball. There’s no wind. It’s high summer, muggy with the threat of an evening storm. Her skin is sheen with perspiration and Scully sees the rash of pimples breaking out across her forehead. Her body is changing, growing. She looks more and more like Mulder these days – all rangy limbs and the large nose she hates. But she’s beautiful beyond convention and every day Scully tells her daughter that.

The blades turn and Esther throws the ball one last time before rushing up the steps, past Scully. “Dad! Will’s coming.”

Scully puts down her book and watches the windmill. In her head, there’s the familiar pressure of the connection and she breathes. In and out, as the blades rotate. He’s coming and he doesn’t know how long for but can she cook those fritters this time, the curried corn ones because it’s too hot for roast and besides Mulder really needs to get the barbecue out and give it a clean. And how are the tomatoes? There should be a real good crop this year. He’s got fresh basil with him and a wedge of mozzarella so he can make Esther the salad she loves.

Before she’s really come around, Scully has already reached for the olive oil and the salt and pepper and she’s searching for the platter and bowls with the blue windmills pattern because it’s like a family joke now. Everything gets served on them when Will’s back.

His hair is short this time. Neatly cropped and pushed up at the fringe. He looks like a movie star and she remembers Mulder with his spiky bangs and baggy suits what feels like a hundred years ago. Fuck, he was handsome then and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it but look. And she glances over at him now, washing tomatoes at the sink, wearing an old grey tee that’s untucked so she can see the flare of the muscles at his waist and the patch of silver hair in the middle of his back. He turns and smiles at her and fuck, if he isn’t just as handsome now and there’s a whole lot she can do about it, even if it takes them a little longer to get there these days.

“Can I layer the salad, Mom?” Esther’s curled her hair so that it frames her face and she’s wearing a fitted vest and cut off denims that just make her look even longer-legged.

“Sure, honey. Wash your hands.”

All the while, Scully’s watching Will and he knows it. He opens a beer and sits next to her. “I don’t know,” is all he says and she knows he’ll be gone in a day or two. She covers his hand with hers and squeezes, grateful for any time with him.

The salad is perfect with the fritters. There’s sourdough bread and salty butter and fresh greens with spring onion relish and a crisp white that Mulder pours with a little too much extravagance. Scully is flushed and the fan is ticking overhead. Her hair is sticking to her head and Esther hasn’t stopped asking Will questions. He fields them with experience, never really saying much, but giving his sister enough material for him to remain her idol. Mulder runs his beer bottle against his lips and she smiles at him, running through their years together. If there was ever a case more strange than their son, she can’t remember it.

“Will, do you have a girlfriend?”

“Nope,” he says, leaning back on his chair. “Don’t have time these days.”

She frowns and says in a low voice, “But you must have been in love at least once?”

Will laughs and the fan clicks in time. “I’m not sure if I know what that even means.”

Esther is growing more curious. “Everybody knows what love is,” she declares with the authority of a pre-teen. “Even Mom and Dad know.”

There’s a slow smile spreading over Will’s face and it’s the perfect out for him. Esther needs to choose her words more carefully. Scully picks up her plate and starts to take the others to the bench next to the sink.

“Yeah, why don’t you tell us how you fell in love, Dad?” But it’s Will who asks, teases.

Mulder chuckles and he’s had a bottle of beer too many and Scully knows it’s bad. She turns on the tap, running her wrist under the water and praying it’s not going to be too bad.

“Well,” he starts, “it’s pretty hard to fall in love with a spy. Especially one in a suit three times as big as she was.”

“A spy?” Esther squeals. “Mom wasn’t a spy. She was a scientist. A doctor. And all she was trying to do was keep you in check. She’s told me this part. She was assigned to keep Spooky Mulder from chasing aliens. And you shouldn’t judge a woman by her clothes.”

Will grins and takes another swig of beer. “There’s no such thing as aliens.”

Esther sits upright, leaning on her elbows. Her eyes widen. “Then how do you explain your blood? And Mom’s?”

The room stills, save for the whoosh of the fan blades, and Scully turns to look at her family, seated round the table. A typical scene. But her twelve year old daughter is goading her adult son about his bloodwork and her husband is watching them like he’s at a tennis match – head turning from child to child as they trade arcane statements about their provenance.

“I worked out pretty early on she wasn’t really a spy. Not in the Cold War sense, anyway. Although, she was pretty good at freezing me out of anything important in her life.” His expression is pure Mulder. A wide, cocky smile, chin up, eyebrows raised.

“I think you forget just how many times you ditched me, Mulder.”

“I did that to save you, Scully.”

“Good to see your martyr complex is still as strong as ever.”

Esther claps. “Round one to Mom. Tell us about your first kiss.”

Will links his hands behind his head and waits. Mulder stands up and takes another beer from the fridge. Scully sighs, wiping her hands on the tea towel.

“She kissed me when I wasn’t me,” he says. “A man who could take any form tricked her with some red wine and a smooth line or two and she fell for it. Can you believe it?”

“I didn’t kiss Eddie Van Blundht with a silent H, Mulder. And you know it. Besides, his smooth line or two was generally what one might consider typical adult conversation. He asked me about my life. I told him stories. He listened. That’s how dates usually go.”

“So you admit it was a date?” Mulder says, looking at Esther. Their daughter giggles. Will shakes his head.

Scully throws up her hands. “It wasn’t a date insofar as we were partners and there was no way we would have or should have been dating. But it was an occasion where grown-ups conversed like grown-ups while enjoying adult beverages.”

“Where were you, Dad? While Mom was not kissing you?”

“I was bravely fighting my way out of a locked cupboard and rushing to your mother’s rescue.”

Scully draws in a breath. “I’ve never needed rescuing, Mulder. You know that.” The suds float around the sink, swirling and dancing with the same mirth that set Esther off.

“The Antarctic ring a bell, Scully? Snowcats and anti-virus medication. Alien pods and hyperthermia.”

“Is that the bee thing?” Esther asks, eager for more, even though she’s heard these stories, or versions of them, for years. “You didn’t kiss then, either. What’s the go with you two? How long did it take you two to actually kiss and declare your love?”

“I tried,” Mulder says. “I kissed the 1939 version of your mother and I declared my love for her when I got back to 1998. But she didn’t believe me. How many times can a guy be rejected?”

Scully smirks and jabs him in the ribs. “You rejected me when I turned up in your hotel room with wine and cheese. You decided searching for the mothman was the more attractive prospect.”

“Ah, Florida. Your hair was a frizzy mess and that blue coat, not quite as bad as the earlier version but still, and your singing.”

“Scully has a nice voice,” Will says. And she sees him in his cot kicking his legs like the baby he was but wondering what was going on in that brain of his. “I remember the lullabies she sung me.”

The sound of Mulder’s bottle hitting the table top startles her. He flexes his jaw and chews over what Will has just said. His abilities are a blessing and a curse. To consciously remember a mother’s lullaby from those early months may seem like a wonderful thing but it wasn’t that much later that Scully gave him away.

“You still haven’t told us about the kiss,” Esther says. “And the zombies. I wanna hear about the zombies.”

“Again?” Scully asks and she takes the cheesecake out of the fridge. She pours maple syrup over it and sprinkles crushed pecans. “It was very chaste but it meant a lot. The kiss was the beginning.”

“And when did Mulder really tell you he loved you, Scully?” Will is amused now, egging on his sister, but as he leans forward, there’s a wistful look in his eyes. She’s listened to him for years, out there, doing whatever it is he’s doing. He tells her his dreams. He tells her his nightmares. She’s come to know their son in her head and she shares it with Mulder the best way she can but there’s still a disconnect that both Mulder and he find frustrating. Here now, at the table, surrounded by his family, Will looks a little broken.

“Mulder took a little while to actually say the words.” She pushes him a plate of cheesecake and watches his lips pop open a little. He’s remembering that moment too and it’s not one they’ve shared. So many of the roads in their lives have been twisted, pot-holed and filled with dead-ends that this one moment where they were both in the same lane is one they hold dear.

“And so did you,” Mulder counters. “Besides, we both showed our love in different ways and in less conventional terms. I once told your mother that she was my one in five billion.”

“You had been committed at the time, Mulder. Was I really supposed to take the ravings of a madman seriously?”

“Your mother forced her way into a game and shot all the bad guys.”

“And girls,” Scully adds, nodding to Esther.

Mulder chuckles. “And she made sure I didn’t make too much of an ass of myself on national tv.”

“I saw that episode,” Will says, “and you did make an ass out of yourself, Mulder.”

Smiling, Mulder shakes his head. “What was it you said, Scully? ‘Mulder, you wanna talk about werewolves to me, knock yourself out but this could ruin your career’. That meant a lot.” His mouth straightens. “You were and still are my constant, my touchstone.”

“So, we know you don’t say it very often but when did you feel it?” Esther asks. “You’ve told me all these stories but I still don’t know when you both fell in love.”

Will smiles quietly and Scully shivers. Mulder puts his spoon down.

“When your mother was returned to the hospital, after she’d been abducted, I felt so grateful that she was back, so compelled to find out what had happened, it drove me for years, that fire. I didn’t recognise it at first,” he stops and looks at Scully. “but that was love in its purest essence.”

“Mom?” Esther hands Scully a tissue. “your turn.”

Scully dabs her eyes. “I was dying. And the only person I was truly scared for was your father. That was love in its purest essence too.”

“But why didn’t you tell him?” Esther asks.

“Because what would have been the point?” Will says. “And by the time she went into remission, it would have looked like a sympathy thing.”

The fan whirs above their heads and Esther rests her chin on her hands. “But Dad was already in love with you.”

Chuckling, Mulder ruffles her hair. “And that, pumpkin, is the insanity of adulthood. We spend so long avoiding people or feelings or choices that we miss out on life. Take it from us, your paths are not always destined to run where you think they will. So make the most of the journey.”

Will pushes back his chair and collects the plates. Esther gets up and helps. Mulder leans forward and takes Scully hands in his. He mouths ‘I love you’ and Scully nods and says ‘me too’.

Outside, the wind whips up and the windmill creaks into action. Will stands at the back door with his sister next to him watching the blades turn and turn.


End file.
